


Experience Points Gained: Bard

by brightephemera



Category: Neverwinter Nights
Genre: F/M, Flash Fic, Friendship, neverwinter nights 2 - Freeform, often silly side stories, very little to do with canon plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 01:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightephemera/pseuds/brightephemera
Summary: Short scenes from the adventures of Shardbearer Lynesse, half-elven bard.





	1. Lizards and Good Company (Bevil)

The swamp was close and stinking. The sandy paths ran between poisonously green pools and mossy snags that jabbed up into tawny murk above. Her childhood friend Bevil shifted his longsword from hand to hand. “Lynesse.”

“Hm?” She was looking some yards ahead at the low stone entrance to some kind of vault, something that held something she didn’t want to see. But they were out of options.

“You can smell it from here,” he said. “Can’t you? Charnel.”

“Lizardmen aren’t known for burning their dead.”

“What about eating them?”

Lynesse shuddered. “Look, we get in, we get out.”

“I’m with you all the way. Just…are you sure we have to get into _that_ vault?”

Lynesse thought of the desperate defense being enacted in the village proper. “Yes,” she said. “Help me get the door open. I’ll do the rest myself.”

“Like fun you will. The place will be crawling with lizardmen. You’re not going in without me.”

Lynesse rocked back on her heels and examined her tall, anxious, sturdy friend. “Who am I fighting here?” she said slyly.

“Anyone in earshot,” he said, nodding toward her lute. “Aren’t you always?”


	2. Free Concert (Neeshka)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lynesse and Neeshka spread art in downtown Neverwinter.

“Here,” said Neeshka.

“Are you crazy?” said Lynesse.

“Hey, you decided to go sneaking around with the tiefling.”

They stood in the shadows of a covered porch that ran around all four sides of a tree-shaded courtyard. The construction was stone and brightly painted wood; the trees grew from gardens of richly green shrubs starred with pink flowers. It was the most luxurious scene Lynesse had ever seen in her life.

“Sneaking around is one thing,” she said. “Starting a concert in Lord What’s-his-name’s estate courtyard is not what I had in mind!”

“We got in. Easy. We’ll get out. Easy. Why not make the middle interesting?”

Lynesse eased her lute free of its harness. “I’m dedicating this to you posthumously,” she said, and struck a raucous chord.

Neeshka pitched in with a thready soprano, the old ditty about the fisherman and the clamp. Lynesse started half whispering, but as the song rolled on and guards failed to appear, she got fuller and fuller.

Neeshka’s head snapped to one side. “Leave,” she said.

Lynesse stilled her strings, cradled her lute, and followed the tiefling. They were damn good at sneaking when they wanted to be.

Neeshka paused in the alley, though, and laughed, leaning hard on the stone wall. “We should’ve sold tickets,” she giggled.

“We _should_ get half a mile away,” said Lynesse. “But I hope they liked the song.”


	3. Are You Afraid? (Bishop, Casavir)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bishop lays down the situation with the King of Shadows. It's bleak.

Lynesse felt her throat constricting when Bishop came into view. She was perched on the fence of a tiny courtyard behind the new inn, and Casavir in the center had been a willing listener for some of the musical spells she was considering adding to her repertoire. The man had an excellent ear for music and very little sense for how it might interact with his paladin’s battle space. Sometimes fitting ideas in past his prayers got difficult.

Then, Bishop. The tall Ranger strolled down the beaten path, one hand habitually gripping the knife at his belt. He looked from Lynesse to Casavir and back. “Oh, fair Captain, I _crave_ an audience.”

Casavir frowned bullishly. “You would do well to stop calling her that.”

“Do you dispute that she’s the Captain, or that she’s fair? Answer carefully, she’s listening.”

“Casavir, you may as well ask a carcass to stop stinking.” Lynesse was never sure how angry to act. Too much and Bishop would enjoy her displeasure, too little and Casavir would think her inattentive. Sometimes she wasn’t sure how angry to _feel_. Bishop danced on the edge of being too much trouble to keep. When she needed someone dead? He’d have scalp and pockets’ contents by the day’s end. It wasn’t the kindest calculation, but he pulled his weight and she tolerated his sarcasm. “Go on. I’ll come for you.”

Casavir cast Bishop a sullen look, gave Lynesse a courtly bow, and walked off carrying his air of total solidity with him.

“How is your sweetheart on double entendres?” Bishop said idly. “Or is he too pure to notice that kind of thing?”

“What is it you want, Bishop?”

His gaze did the signature thing where it started on her feathered cap, dawdled down her body, then swung wide to climb the fence and grove toward the wide sky. “Reports are in,” he said conversationally. “The King of Shadows is massing his forces. Aren’t you afraid?”

“I’m massing mine,” she said. “I’m not worried yet.”

He scoffed. “Are you ever afraid, fair Captain?”

“What would be the point? I get through.”

“You weren’t afraid facing the Shadow Captain.”

“No.”

“Nor Ammon Jerro.”

“No.”

“Nor Lorne?”

Lynesse bit her tongue. Bishop was smiling, not pleasantly. He knew damn well what emotional state she’d been in when he interrupted her vigil, the night before the trial by combat against the juggernaut Lorne. He knew.

To fill the silence where he liked to maraud, she confessed, “I was afraid.”

“Good girl. Summon up that level of sense again and you might just get through this.”

She would, thanks to her friends. “I need to know where he’s gathering. if I sent you to scout east of the city, would you do it?”

“My dear Captain. I’m here for your whim.” He looked her over. “So tell me when you get an interesting one.” He smiled ferally, aped Casavir’s bow, and strolled away.

If she could peel his look off her skin she would, but it was too late for that.  Her composure was not returning. Coming for Casavir…she stayed still for a while, at least until she stopped blushing.


	4. The Clever One (Sand)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lynesse checks in with her smartest companion.

“Question for you,” said Lynesse, flipping listlessly through yet another tome that might have information about the King of Shadows.

“Hmm?” said Sand. She had a feeling the elf was torn between hating interruptions and loving being needed. It was nice, sometimes, to meet someone whose ego was so easily stroked.

“Are you the smartest person in this entire operation?”

“I didn’t expect you to recognize that.”

“So…yes.”

“Hm-mm.” The elf’s thin mouth curled up. “Not to put too fine a point on it, yes.”

Lynesse dared another glance down at the incredibly boring prose. There weren’t even pictures. “So you can finish this book better than little uneducated me possibly could.”

His eyes widened, then took on a crafty look. “You’re not telling me you’re giving _up_ …?”

“Oh, I really am. Think you can cover this one?”

“I suppose you’re going to go play with the gnome and the tiefling or something,” Sand said sourly.

“We all do what we’re good at.” She bookmarked the tome and set it on her desk. “Have fun!”


	5. A Game of Patience (Elanee, Neeshka)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lynesse matches wits with a badger. Because of course she does.

The war room had been the first chamber of the Keep to be fully roofed, appointed, furnished, bannered. Blue and silver tapestries lined the broad chamber, and the war table was a wonder of imported ironwood topped with pond-smooth glass over the great Sword Coast map.

In the vast silver-fastened chair at the head of the war table, Lynesse sat, bracing a lute at either hip. She was leaning forward, her gold hair falling just ahead of her face.

Naloch, Elanee’s badger companion, was sitting on Lynesse's embroidered hem on the floor, leaning in.

Pluck-uck-uck pluck. Lynesse picked a little flourish on one lute. Naloch snuffled and moved his nose toward the thrumming instrument. Pluck-uck-uck pluck. Lynesse picked the other. Naloch, giving up on the first lute, nosed toward the new noise. She let him get close. Pluck-uck-uck pluck on the first.

In the doorway, Elanee walked up to Neeshka. Neeshka shushed and pointed. “You’re back,” she whispered. “Thank the gods. Make her stop.”

Pluck-uck-uck pluck. The elf stared. “How long has she been doing this?”

“I gotta see how long it goes,” breathed Lynesse. Pluck-uck-uck pluck. Naloch whickered and snuffled.

Elanee put on her most authoritative tone. “Naloch wants to know how long you mean to keep doing this. He could go all day, but it's a little silly.”

Lynesse halted mid-pluck. Her wide blue eyes fixed on the druid, then the badger. “You could’ve _said_ something,” she said sternly, and snatched her lutes out of the animal’s reach.


End file.
